This month featured executives making the switch from big pharma to take on leadership positions at mid-sized companies.
It is not exactly a surprise that those individuals at the bigger pharmaceutical companies have to move on to find a position higher up the leadership chain or to join the C-suite – there are only a limited number of seats at the table at the top 20 companies.
As a result, this month saw Sanofi lose the head of its vaccine unit, right in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic, to take a CEO position elsewhere.
The scarcity of talent at the top level of the cell and gene therapy also led to Celgene seeing a leader in the area leave them to take a CEO position elsewhere.
This month featured executives making the switch from big pharma to take on leadership positions at mid-sized companies.
It is not exactly a surprise that those individuals at the bigger pharmaceutical companies have to move on to find a position higher up the leadership chain or to join the C-suite – there are only a limited number of seats at the table at the top 20 companies.
As a result, this month saw Sanofi lose the head of its vaccine unit, right in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic, to take a CEO position elsewhere.
The scarcity of talent at the top level of the cell and gene therapy also led to Celgene seeing a leader in the area leave them to take a CEO position elsewhere.
For further details on these appointments and more, click through the slideshow above.
Sanofi loses the CEO of its vaccine divisions to fellow French pharmaceutical company, Ipsen. David Loew will leave his current position as head of Sanofi Pasteur and join Ipsen as CEO on July 1.
Sanofi loses its vaccines head at an inopportune moment, given the company is currently working on expanding its vaccines business and developing multiple vaccines against COVID-19.
Last week, Sanofi announced that it would be investing €610m ($685m) across its vaccine business to build a vaccine production site and an R&D center.
The company also arranged partnerships with GSK and Translate Bio to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
Loew has been head of Sanofi Pasteur for the last four years, during which time he managed the fallout from the launch of Dengvaxia, a vaccine against dengue fever that was subsequently shown to be potentially harmful to those without pre-exposure to the virus.
He joins Ipsen as CEO after seven years at Sanofi and also a decade of experience at Roche.
“Loew is a seasoned leader with extensive worldwide experience in business areas of key importance to Ipsen,” said Marc De Garidel, chairman of Ipsen.
Whilst at Sanofi, Loew managed the European region and, during his time at Roche, worked as a country head in Mexico, with additional experience in Austria, France, the US, and Switzerland.
Aymeric Le Chatelier, who will continue his position as acting CEO at Ipsen until Loew’s arrival, will step back to his former role as chief financial officer at the beginning of July.
WuXi AppTec brings in David Chang as CEO of its WuXi Advanced Therapies business unit, which is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) focused on cell and gene therapies.
Chang joins the company from Celgene, where he held the position of head of cell therapy global manufacturing. In this position, he specialized in the manufacture of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapies.
Prior to Celgene, where he had worked for two years, Chang had spent time at some of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical industry – including five years at Roche, seven years at Genentech, and six years at Biogen.
For WuXi AppTec, the appointment of Chan coincides with the announcement of the launch of its closed process CAR-T platform.
WuXi AppTec’s investment in advanced therapeutics comes as the number of cell and gene therapies in the global pipeline continues to grow rapidly.
As of June 1, Cedrik Britten is CMO at Immatics Biotechnologies – he joins after having previously worked as head of oncology cell therapy research at GSK.
The appointment fits neatly into Immatics’ work to discover and develop T cell redirecting cancer immunotherapies. Britten will be responsible for the management and development of the biotech’s clinical pipeline.
Immatics currently has eight programs in its pipeline, with four going through Phase I trials for solid and hematological cancers. Earlier this year, Britten’s former company actually partnered with Immatics to develop T-cell receptor therapies (TCR-Ts), as part of a potential $600m deal.
In Britten’s position at GSK, he had previously worked on the development of TCR-Ts and early-stage CAR-T programs.
The agreement to bring Britten onboard has also resulted in Stephen Eck, Immatics’ former CMO, stepping down from his position, though he will stay on to support the transition of Britten into the role.
Oxford Biomedica appoints Roch Doliveux as its non-executive chairman, effective as of today. The decision was taken after Lorenzo Tallarigo, the current holder of the position, informed the company that he would be retiring from the board.
Doliveux is the current chairman of Pierre Fabre and is also a non-executive director at both Stryker Corporation and UCB – at the latter company, he acted as CEO for ten years and also held a position as head of its pharma division.
Doliveux joins the team at Oxford Biomedica as the company plays a leading role in ensuring that AstraZeneca is able to produce enough doses of its vaccine for the novel coronavirus. This led to the decision earlier this month to add two additional manufacturing suites to its capacity.
As well as aiding the scale up of COVID-19 vaccines, Oxford Biomedica is also working in the rapidly developing cell and gene therapy area, which saw it seal a deal with Bristol Myers Squibb to support the development of CAR-T therapies.
Dendreon announced that Jason O’Neill will join the company as CEO, as of the beginning of June. O’Neill brings with him experience of working at the largest pharma companies in the industry, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, and Roche.
O’Neill’s most recent role in the industry was CEO of Iridium Therapeutics, which he held for two years until the end of 2018.
Dendreon called to attention O’Neill’s experience in managing Sanofi’s oncology portfolio for six years as part of the reason for bringing him into the leadership position at Dendreon.
The company’s lead product is Provenge (sipuleucel-T), which is an immunotherapy for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
O’Neill, CEO of Dendreon, said of his appointment: “My experience developing successful growth and market entry strategies is a timely addition to the company as we work to build a robust R&D pipeline and expand access to the life-extending benefits of Provenge in the US and internationally.”
Broadening access to the product into the international markets was another reason given for his appointment, with his time working in Asia-Pacific market cited as a benefit for expanding the company into a ‘multi-product, multi-market company’.
